


Night Wanderings

by ChartreuseChanteuse



Category: Dukes of Hazzard, The Dukes of Hazzard (TV), The Dukes of Hazzard - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-02
Updated: 2011-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 23:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChartreuseChanteuse/pseuds/ChartreuseChanteuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bo's a sloppy sleeper.</p><p>Hints of a future relationship between the boys -- and an alternate take on why Luke ran off to the Marines?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Wanderings

When it comes to nights with Bo, the best are spent out under the stars. Their bedroom is fine, even ideal for wintertime. But somewhere in those days between the daffodils and the spring peepers, there’s this urge to live outdoors that surges up in him. Bo comes along, probably because he always has. Because if Luke can live in the wilderness so can he; because his mantra since he was old enough to know the words is, “me too.” It’s set an odd skipping rhythm to their whole lives, two added beats at the end of any declarative sentence: _I’m-going-camping, me-too_. And sometimes takes that extra, compensating, triplet – “I got him.” Because every now and then he still has to convince the authoritative powers that Bo’s not going to get himself killed on a weekend camping trip.

Those earliest excursions, when the ground can’t make up its mind to be fully thawed, and they’re never sure whether they might wake up to a thin glaze of frost coating the grass and leaves, that’s when they’ve got to use the tent. Which has always been plenty big enough for two boys, even if Bo has tried to grow a whole foot this past year. But the width of space that he could happily occupy solo is never enough for Bo. When they’re confined under canvas, Luke’s learned to sacrifice one arm to the cold, hanging out the zipper of his sleeping bag and resting on Bo. Otherwise he runs the risk of getting steamrolled in the night, when Bo suddenly gets a hankering to find himself on Luke’s side of the tent. Doesn’t matter whether he starts out on starboard or port, Bo’s got a magnet somewhere in his core that rolls him onto Luke somewhere along the time that the only self-respecting creature that ought to be awake is a Barred Owl.

Used to be a hell of a way to wake up, crushed under the weight of a little cousin that was getting less little every day. Where the awkward, almost square-shaped kid of the past has gone, Luke’s got no idea, but he was easier to defend against. At least when Luke had the longer arms and could plant one firmly in the middle of Bo’s forehead just to watch his cousin flounder around trying to land a fist anywhere. They’re too old for that game now, and it’s a good thing, what with Bo growing long and lean and threatening to catch up to Luke any day now. Slap fights seem to have been replaced by steamrolling attacks in the night. At least as long as that one hand’s on Bo he knows it’s coming. Can’t always wake up enough to get out of the way, but he can shove Bo back to where he belongs before getting crushed to death. And his stupid cousin never even fully wakes up, disavowing all knowledge of his actions the next day.

Luke doesn’t buy it, not completely. If Bo was a genuinely cataleptic roller, he’d hit the floorboards in their room every night. That hasn’t happened since the bedwetting years, he’s pretty sure (and he doesn’t miss those mornings one bit); certainly not since well before puberty gave Bo all those curls at one end, and libido at the other.

When it’s warm enough, and dry, they sleep with nothing but air above them all the way up to the stars. Those are the best nights, with the coals between them glowing warm, thin smoke keeping the mosquitoes from droning in their ears. Before long, Bo generally succumbs to the night noises, leaving Luke to a quiet peace of watching sparks fly and wondering where they get off to before they die. It’s a time of night when the burdens of gravity seem light enough for him to consider what it means to fly, and somewhere after he cruises high enough that the fire is just a sparkle beneath him, he falls asleep. Safe from being steamrolled; Bo’s on the other side of the fire circle, and self-preservation always keeps him there.

Wakes up with the weight of the world on his chest. Wonders, as his spark dims its way back down to the cool earth, riding on a drop of dew, whether pneumonia is this heavy and hot, if a heart attack can be painless. Even semi-conscious he’s trying to fool himself out of what this really is, but he knows.

“Bo,” wakes him up, his own lips opening up to the name. Normal in its own way; it’s probably the first thing he says on an average day.

The possum on his chest acknowledges nothing.

“Bo,” he says again, lets it drag out through a rollercoaster of ups and downs. Pushing and shoving without the smallest shred of effectiveness, because his damn hands are trapped in the sleeping bag. Should have known better than to let a layer of down come between him and freedom.

“Mmmm,” has the nerve to come out like a complaint. _Quit bugging me, coz, I’m sleeping_. Except he’s not, and Luke knows it. There’s no way that blonde head’s been on his shoulder for longer than the time it took him to achieve consciousness.

“Ain’t this why you brought a pillow?” Although no self-respecting man needs feathers under his head to get a good night’s sleep by a campfire. They’ve both seen enough westerns to know that even the sleeping bags are the kind of thing only a weak-willed black-hat would resort to using. “Where is the damn thing, anyway?”

“Left it,” Bo says. “Over there.” And goes back to faking unconsciousness.

“Well go back over there and sleep on it.” He’s got one hand relatively free, wiggling its way up toward the opening at his chest, but before it even gets there, he uses it for a crude shove at Bo. “Dang it.” Punctuation, just to make clear it’s nonnegotiable.

Bo sighs, such a burden to keep his place on Luke’s chest against nearly powerless shoves. “Luke.” Yawn, because he’s being harassed when all reasonable people are sleeping. “You ain’t my pillow.” Well, that’s useful information, something Luke would never have figured out on his own. “I got cold, is all.”

“Bo—” He’s got to get that hand free, otherwise he’ll never be able to strangle the brilliant one that’s snugged right up tight against his side.

“Quit moving,” is the next complaint, and just look at that, how Bo’s arm isn’t in his sleeping bag at all, just hanging out free and clamping itself around Luke now. It’s got him caught tighter than Rosco’s handcuffs.

His mind ticks through the various steps Bo must have gone through to get here – getting out of his sleeping bag, dragging it around the fire, sliding back into it, then shuffling himself right up against Luke. A lot more effort than a simple steamroll. And it’s funny how the cold one is sweating there where his forehead’s right close to Luke’s jawbone. That blonde fluff that brushes his cheek with every little shuffle is simply radiating heat.

He really ought to sit up; he doesn’t need hands for that. Heavy as Bo is, he’d have no choice but to roll off once Luke got enough momentum going in the direction of upright.

But that would mean waking up more than he already is, more than he wants to. And dealing with Bo’s manufactured shivers, probably, not to mention begging and that not-whining he’s done since he got too old to gripe in earnest.

So he blows his cousin’s hair away from where it’s trying to get into his mouth and says, “If you got to be that heavy, you got to get more to the middle.” Because that one pinned arm has gone so numb Luke won’t be responsible for what it does unless it gets some blood running back through it.

He’s too close for Luke to see, head tipped in entirely the wrong direction, but he doesn’t need eyes to know. Bo’s grinning victory as he uses that one loose arm to pull himself right to the center of Luke’s chest.

He’s still not fully in control of that numb arm, Luke’s not, but after a few vigorous jerks, he gets it up and out into the cool air. Ought to wake it up eventually. In the meantime, still asleep like it is, it finds a hold on Bo somewhere. Just so Luke will get some warning if his cousin decides to follow another restless nighttime whim. “Go to sleep, Bo,” he growls, except it doesn’t come out nearly as strong as he wants, what with a yawn escaping at the same time.

Bo’s hand comes up to pat his cheek twice, something between comforting him and a soundless _thanks, coz_.

And that’s tonight. But it seems like Luke’s going to have to put more than a fire circle between the two of them if he expects Bo to control his night wanderings.


End file.
